DARPA Pleads Agency's Case in Lean Times

April 24, 2013

Seeing a defense budget that is facing increasing pressure, the head of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) spoke to reporters Wednesday about the need to protect research spending.

The briefing, which coincided with DARPA’s release of a new “framework” outlining the agency’s mission and recent successes, focused on DARPA’s role in national security.

Neither the briefing nor the framework provided significant new details about DARPA programs. The framework’s first page was a photocopy of a citation the agency received in 2012 from then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

“We believe we may be at the beginning of a fundamental shift in how our society allocates resources to the business of national security, I’m not talking today about the immediate issues around sequestration,” said DARPA director Arati Prabhakar.